can an american citizen be considered and enemy combatant? absolutely. it goes back to the civil war war ii.orld killed t barack obama one in the wilds of yemen. if you affiliate yourself with and go to war against american citizens and willfully on behalf of a movement or an enemy then you can be considered an enemy combatant. if in world war ii you went to you are noti forces an enemy combatant? of course you are. host: hina shamsi. it is true u.s. citizens can take up arms against the united states and then they what is called understood belligerents.r the problem here that we are extending and s expanding the laws of war far beyond what is constitutionally permitted under the laws themselves. charles was exactly right. what the suspect is accused of terrorism. if we think of what timothy was done in --at mcveigh did or what was done in bombing, we ark idn't treat those tragedies as acts of war. we appropriately treated them as had to be ts that investigated, prosecuted and appropriately punished. we had an american citizen who was killed on the order